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KDL Labs Enjoy Business Continuity via CROC's Cloud

September 06, 2018

KDL, a clinical diagnostic laboratory network covering 40+ Russian cities, has moved its mission-critical app Laboratory Information System (LIS) to CROC’s Cloud from another virtual data center in order to ensure continuous LIS availability and hence reliable storage and fast processing of test results, which are often key to accurate and prompt disease diagnosis. CROC performed the migration on an extremely tight schedule, with almost no impact on KDL clients. The company now accesses computing resources through a combination of HaaS and CROC’s Cloud services.

For geographically distributed medical organizations, LIS acts like a brain, accumulating data from numerous regional labs. Complete and timely data updating within LIS guarantees high quality of service, and, vice versa, even 1 day of downtime can cause significant client churn and financial and reputational losses. KDL management decided to migrate LIS to CROC’s Cloud as its previous provider was going to relocate the data center and thus would make the system inaccessible for three days.

"Due to our business specifics, such a long downtime is totally unacceptable to us. Clients who deposit their biomaterial with us expect analysis reports to be ready on time, and we are proud that accurate, reliable and prompt testing is one of our key differentiators. Consequently, data coming from labs should promptly appear in the system. In just a few weeks, we had to find a reliable and customer-oriented provider capable of migrating our LIS to another cloud on an extremely tight schedule. Thankfully we found such a provider in CROC," said Yury Leonov, Director General, KDL.

While KDL could endure a maximum migration time of eight hours, all operations were actually performed within less than four hours, at night, when system load is lowest. Encouraged by the migration results, the company also transferred its corporate website to CROC’s Cloud to make it ever-available since it is the main communication channel for clients.

To guarantee the continuity of KDL’s business system, CROC first deployed an infrastructure in its public cloud and then created an isolated virtual environment (VPC) using Hardware as a Service (HaaS) and fully supporting application software. KDL’s entire infrastructure is located in Kompressor, CROC’s fault-tolerant data center certified by Uptime Institute as a Tier III Gold Operational Sustainability facility. For personal data compliance, the customer implemented certified protection tools. In addition, some of KDL’s dedicated infrastructure elements are redundant and the company also enjoys BaaS protecting data in case of any failures.

CROC’s cloud team has to get customer approval for contract amendment at least three months before any change, thus avoiding any sudden inconvenience. Moreover, cloud users also learn about scheduled update and maintenance procedures in advance.

"Our cooperation with CROC took off very successfully: they migrated us skillfully, and we have no complaints about technical support as well. We hope our partnership will last for at least three years. Opting for CROC’s Cloud as our strategy, we are now revising configurations of KDL’s other business apps and IT services and migrating them to the cloud platform to guarantee SLA-enabled accessibility for all critical systems," noted Andrey Ostroukhov, IT Director, KDL.

"While this was not CROC’s first project on migrating information systems from a third-party public cloud to our cloud, implementation was challenging because of a tight schedule. However, we were confident of success because of our rich experience and professional team which worked around the clock, as well as the customer’s deep involvement and instant responses," added Renat Sayfutdinov, Head of Computing Infrastructure Outsourcing, CROC.

About KDL

KDL was established in 2003 and now operates the largest network of 13 lab clusters and some 200 medical offices in more than 50 Russian cities. A B2B market leader, the company serves 2,500+ private clinics and performs lab tests for 20,000+ people every day.

Committed to high-quality and accurate results, the company employs state-of-the-art equipment from leading global vendors, as well as vacuum systems and single-use materials, which minimize human errors and ensure safe blood sampling. For more details, please visit https://kdl.ru/

About CROC

CROC was established in 1992 and has been operating in the Russian IT market for over 26 years, ranking among the top 10 IT companies and top 5 consulting businesses in Russia (Expert Rating Agency, 2017) for over 10 years. Moreover, in 2016, the company was among the top 3 Russian IT service (IDC, TAdviser, 2017), systems integration (IDC, 2017), and IaaS (CNews, 2017) providers.

CROC is the number one Russian IT service provider to the energy and manufacturing (Manufacturing Management portal, 2017) and healthcare (CNews, 2017) sectors, and ranks among the top 3 IT service providers to transportation companies (CNews, 2017).

CROC enables digital transformation with its blockchain, Big Data, VR/AR, AI, IoT, and BIM implementations. The company has been evolving Russia’s first open-source cloud for almost 10 years since 2009 and is the only systems integrator in the country to operate its own fault-tolerant data centers, which boast Tier III Gold Certification of Operational Sustainability from the Uptime Institute. CROC offers cloud and managed B2B services based on its data centers, including IT infrastructure provisioning and management, creation of cloud-based security operations centers, deployment of video and Wi-Fi analytics for marketing needs, and HR process automation.

CROC’s key competences also include integrated platforms for interstate and interagency interaction; development of software and hardware solutions, mobile apps, and digital platforms for communication with customers; data protection and information security solutions; IT support and IT outsourcing; industrial solutions; large contact centers; networks and communication solutions; Digital Signage; computing suites; data storage optimization; and BIM-enabled engineering infrastructures for buildings and data centers.

CROC develops the Innovation Accelerator to create and fine-tune its proprietary new products and cloud services of potential partners. To streamline customer digital transformation, CROC launched a Digital Enabler service for end-to-end agile engineering and roll-out of unique digital processes, as well as established a consulting force to help customers develop digital products that meet end user needs and shape new digital businesses.